Chief Rabbi - Definition and Overview

Chief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognised religious leader of that country's Jewish community. Cities with large Jewish communities may also have their own Chief Rabbis, this is especially the case in Israel but has also been past practice in major Jewish centres in Europe.

Chief Rabbis of Britain

• Judah Loeb Cohen (1696-1700)
• Aaron the Scribe of Dublin (1700-1704)
• Aaron Hart (1704-1756)
• Hart Lyon (1758-1764)
• David Tevele Schiff (1765-1791)
• Solomon Hirschell (1802-1842)
• Nathan Marcus Adler (1845-1891)
• Hermann Marcus Adler (1891-1911)
• Joseph Herman Hertz (1911-1946)
• Sir Israel Brodie (1948-1965)
• Lord Immanuel Jakobovits (1966-1991)
• Jonathan Sacks (since 1991)

Chief Rabbis of Palestine (Ottoman rule)

• Abraham Ashkenazi (1869-1880)

Ashkenazi Chief Rabbis of Jerusalem (Ottoman rule)

• Meïr Auerbach
• Samuel Salant

Sephardic Chief Rabbis of Jerusalem (Ottoman rule)

• Jacob Saul Alyashar

Chief Rabbis of Palestine (British Mandate)

• Ashkenazic:
  • Abraham Isaac Kook (1921-1935)
  • Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog (1936-1948)
• Sephardic:
  • Jacob Meir (1921-1939)
  • Ben-Zion Meir Hai Ouziel (1939-1948)

Chief Rabbis of the State of Israel (Ashkenazi)

• Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog (1948-1959)
• Isser Yehuda Unterman (1964-1973)
• Shlomo Goren (1973-1983)
• Avraham Shapira (1983-1993)
• Yisrael Meir Lau (1993-2003)
• Yona Metzger (since 2003)

Chief Rabbis of the State of Israel (Sephardic)

• Ben-Zion Meir Hai Ouziel (1948-1953)
• Yitzhak Nissim (1955-1973)
• Ovadia Yosef (1973-1983)
• Eliyahu Bakshi Doron (1993-2003)
• Shlomo Amar (since 2003)

Chief Rabbis of Hungary

(confused order, sorry)

• Meir ben Isaac(1708-), rabbi of Eisenstadt and author of "Panim Me'irot"
• Alexander ben Menahem
• Phinehas Auerbach
• Jacob Eliezer Braunschweig
• Hirsch Semnitz
• Simon Jolles (1717-)
• Samson Wertheimer (1693?-1724)(also Eisenstadt and Moravia)
• Bernhard Eskeles(Issachar Berush Eskeles) (1725-1753) [1] (http://www.bh.org.il/NAMES/POW/Eskeles.asp)

• Joseph Hirsch Weiss, grandfather of Stephen Samuel Wise. [2] (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=106&letter=W&search=Weiss%20Chief%20Hungary) [3] (http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/WISE/2001-04/0988484615)
• Samuel Kohn
• Ferenc Hevesi
• Moshe Kunitzer (1828-1837), a pioneer of the Haskalah movement in Hungary.
• Isaac Lichtenstein (1909-)
• Alfréd Schöner
• Koppel Reich
• Chaim Yehuda Deutsch
• József Schweiczer(Schweitzer)

Chief Rabbi of Transsylvania

Chief rabbis of Transsylvania were generally the rabbi of Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia, Karlsburg).

• Joseph Reis Auerbach (d. 1750)
• Shalom Selig ben Saul Cohen (1754-57)
• Johanan ben Isaac (1758-60)
• Benjamin Ze'eb Wolf of Cracow (1764-77)
• Moses ben Samuel Levi Margaliot (1778-1817)
• Menahem ben Joshua Mendel (1818-23)
• Ezekiel Paneth (1823-1843)
• Abraham Friedmann (d. 1879), last chief rabbi of Transylvania.

Chief Rabbis of South Africa

• Louis Rabinowitz
• Bernard M. Casper
• Cyril Harris
• Warren Goldstein

External link

• Website of the Chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth (http://www.chiefrabbi.org)

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